


No Ruined Stone

by blackkat



Series: Weird Westerns [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Buried Alive, Horror, M/M, Magic, Murder, Murder Mystery, OC death, Rescue, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: There's a grave at the top of the cliff, not dug by any human hands. Kakashi is expecting to find another victim in it.He finds a survivor instead.





	No Ruined Stone

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: sheriff kakashi working on a case of people buried alive finds a live one! (it's imortal hidan with kakahidan?)

“Damn,” Yamato says grimly.

Kakashi doesn’t echo the sentiment, even though he wants to. Instead, he crouches down over the coffin, trying not to stare at the scratch marks on the inside of the lid. “That’s the third one this month,” he says, keeps his eyes on the face of the young man inside. Handsome, young, dressed in a suit that’s much to nice for him to have owned while he was alive. Tailored, too, unless Kakashi misses his guess, which is almost creepier than anything else.

“Two last month. And the month before that,” Yamato says noncommittally, but Kakashi hears what he’s not saying. Either they haven’t found some of the other victims, or the killer is escalating.

Tipping his hat back, Kakashi tries not to grimace. “Another search party might be a good idea,” he decides, and slants a glance at his deputy.

Yamato rolls his eyes, but he pushes away from the tree he’s leaning on and bends down to scoop up his rifle and the shovel he’d brought. “Someday, Kakashi, you’re going to have to lead your own search parties,” he says pointedly, and Kakashi gives him the best smile he can with another young man lying dead a foot away.

“That’s what I have you for, Tenzō,” he says blithely, and Yamato pulls a face.

“It’s _Yamato_,” he corrects.

Kakashi hums, unconvinced. Yamato will always be Tenzō to him, the boy brought up as an assassin who managed to break free on his own. Well. On his own with a little help. “Start at the edge of the river,” he says, turning to cast a look over the scattered stands of trees that line the bottom of the canyon. They’re thickest by the water, but all the graves that have been found so far are up higher. Harder to dig up here, with less cover, and Kakashi doesn’t know if the killer wants to get caught or if there’s some other reason they’re working like this.

“Yes, sir,” Yamato says mildly, and turns away. “I’ll tell Shisui and have him plot this grave. Maybe there’s a pattern by now.”

If they’ve been missing a third of the victims, whatever pattern is emerging is going to be flawed. It already seems like a bad idea to try and understand how this person thinks, and Kakashi doesn’t want Shisui getting too obsessed.

“Make him find that not-an-outlaw boyfriend of his and take him home,” he says to Yamato’s retreating back. “And make sure Zabuza knows I asked him to distract Shisui. Waggle your eyebrows. Maybe offer him one of my books.”

Yamato is very obviously pretending not to hear him as he retrieves his horse, waves vaguely, and calls, “Did you say something, Sheriff? Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

Kakashi rolls his eye, glancing back at the corpse. “No one respects me,” he tells it mournfully, then sighs and pushes to his feet, straightening his hat. Keeps looking, not quite able to pull his gaze away, and says, “I’ll find him.”

There’s no response, of course. No motion except the babble of the river and the sway of the wind in the trees. Kakashi closes his eyes, and the shiver that slides down his spine is entirely instinctive. Buried alive. Hell. That’s not a fate he’d wish on the very worst people, and as far as anyone can tell, all the men taken so far are normal. Pretty to look at, fond of cards and liquor, but nothing out of the ordinary. At least, there's nothing about them that Kakashi has been able to find—only Mizuki and one of the others was from Konoha, though, all the other strangers no one has seen before.

It makes Kakashi wonder if they're being captured somewhere along the road, kept somewhere until the killer decides he wants to torture someone. But if that’s the case, they haven’t managed to find the hideout yet.

Then again, the territory of Fire Country is vast, and the mountains start a few miles from here. There’s no saying how many outlaws and killers could be holed up there, never to be found.

Firmly, Kakashi forces himself to turn away, leaving the coffin and its occupant for the mortician. He can at least take another look around the area while he’s waiting, see if he can pick up any other tracks. His past as a tracker has to be worth _something_, even if he doesn’t get the chance to use it much now that he’s stationary. Being the sheriff of a particularly small frontier town is a lot more boring than one would assume.

…Well. Most of the time it is.

On a whim, Kakashi slips down towards the stream, judging the width and speed of it. It’s swollen with snowmelt, fast with the spring rains, and too treacherous to cross outside of the shallows, but logic says that if Kakashi can't find any trace of the killer having approached from the top of the ravine, the river is the next best bet. Maybe, with a boat or a raft, someone could have carried a coffin down unseen, then gotten it up to the grave. It’s more likely than anything else Kakashi’s considered, at least.

It’s a particularly brutal way to kill, Kakashi thinks, and without quite meaning to he remembers the scratches. Deep, desperate gouges carved into satin and wood as the occupant slowly suffocated to death, without any hope of escape. It drives another shiver down his spine, and he looks away, up along the bank, trying to find any trace of passage there, because even a raft would have to touch the shore. Doesn’t let himself linger on the tailored clothes, the perfect fit that says the killer knew their victims well enough to measure them for tailoring. Had them long enough to have those clothes made, just so they could kill their victims in them.

It’s terrible. It makes Kakashi angry, low and quiet deep in his gut, and he breathes around it, focuses.

There's nothing to find, though. For all the world it’s as if the coffins just appeared in the ground like they rose up from the center of the earth, with no hands to put them there. The only sign of their presence is broken turf and mounded earth, and even that is nothing human hands could have made.

Kakashi’s covered eye aches, and he presses the heel of his palm to it. Breathes out, feeling the faint shimmer that’s more unnatural wind than anything visible, and then drops his hand. The feeling doesn’t fade, and he breathes in. Turns, scanning what he can see of the canyon, and—

Nothing on the floor of the ravine, but up on the top of the cliff, high above the river, there’s a curl of something that isn't wind but feels like it against Kakashi’s skin.

Kakashi turns to find his horse. Obito's eye has never led him wrong before, and he’s not about to doubt it now.

There's no more trace of recent human presence at the top of the cliff than there was at the grave near the bottom. Kakashi slows his mare as she turns off the narrow deer track, shying slightly from the drop, and rather than fight her about it he swings off her back, dropping her reins on the ground and giving the short, sharp whistle that tells her to stay. Gladly, she plants her feet, and Kakashi keeps moving, heading right up to where the swirl in the air marks another disturbed thrust of earth.

Disturbed from underneath, Kakashi thinks grimly, and crouches down beside it. He can't remember the last time a search party passed here, but it can't have been more than a few days ago. Shisui is regular enough that Kakashi could set his watch by him, even when Zabuza is in town. The turned earth is new, though, or someone would have mentioned it; by this point, after seven bodies, they all know what to look for.

The chances that whatever poor bastard got stuck in the coffin is still alive are slim to none, though. Kakashi closes his eye, shakes himself, and goes to get the shovel strapped to his saddle. This is when deputies come in handy, but—well. Kakashi can do the work, when it’s needed. And the very least he can do for the killer’s victims is get them out of the prisons they died in, identify them, cremate them so that they don’t have to suffer another coffin. It’s what Kakashi would want, if he were in their place.

However this bastard gets the coffins in the ground, he’s thorough. Kakashi digs six feet down before the blade of his shovel hits something solid, and by that time the sun is high. Kakashi is mildly out of breath, has stripped down to his shirtsleeves as he digs, and at the thump of metal on wood he stops short, leaning down to shove one gloved hand down through the loose until he touched smooth pine. The relief makes him let out a breath, and he raps it once on instinct—

Instantly, something pounds from the inside, and Kakashi stops dead.

It takes about three seconds for the realization to make it into his brain, and then he surges forward with a curse, shoving the loose dirt out of the way, scraping desperately to clear off enough soil to find the latch. It’s a simple bolt, just like the others, but caked with dirt and half-bent, and Kakashi spends several precious seconds wrenching at it before he finally grabs for the shovel and brings it down hard on the lock. Wood splinters, and the banging gets more frantic, so Kakashi does it again, then again. With a splintering crack, the whole latch gives way, and Kakashi grabs the edge of the lid, hauls it up and open. Cheap pine, and it’s light, the bare minimum needed to hold a body, something Kakashi has never had a chance to be thankful for before.

He feels it now, though. A surge of terrible relief, of vicious satisfaction as there’s a cry. A body jerks up, but earth clatters down and he howls, a sound of pure terror and fury. Scrambles up, but his legs are weak, give way before he can even get out of the coffin, and Kakashi moves. Catches him under the arms, and he’s shorter, but broader; it takes effort, but Kakashi manages to haul him up in one hard jerk, out of the coffin and the grave and up onto solid ground.

“You’re all right,” he says, struggling to contain flailing limbs and frantic blows. Grabs the man’s wrists, tugs him forward right into Kakashi’s chest, and wraps his arms around him, half for comfort and half to pin him before he can hurt himself. “You're all right, you're out, you're fine, no one’s going to put you back in there, I _promise_.”

With a ragged, choking sob, hands fist tight in Kakashi’s shirt. The man hauls himself closer, all but shoving himself into Kakashi, and his shaking is all too clear. “No,” he gasps. “No, no, _no_—”

Kakashi curls a hand around the back of his head, presses his nose to wild, sweat-matted white hair. “Easy,” he murmurs, loosening his grip just enough that it’s not a threat. “I've got you. You're okay.”

“I'm _not_,” the man snarls, and shudders so hard his hysterical laughter comes out ragged. “That fucker—he fucking _buried me alive_, fuck, I'm not okay, _shit_.”

Involuntarily, Kakashi lets out a breath that’s almost laughter, curls his fingers into the man’s hair. “You’re not all right,” he allows. “But at least you're not in a coffin anymore, right?”

There's a pause, and this time the laugh that Kakashi gets is less broken, more simply shaken. “Yeah,” the man says, and looks up, and Kakashi is caught by pale purple eyes, the color arresting. Drags a breath in, lets it out on another shaky laugh, and drops his forehead against Kakashi’s collarbone, another tremor shaking through him. “That fucker Zetsu—he said he had _work_, but fuck that, he just wanted _bodies_.”

The missing piece, Kakashi thinks, and there’s something vicious to it, pleased. This killer has gotten away from him for far too long already, and he’s _tired_ of it. But this man saw him, was likely kept with the rest of the victims, knows the methods and the process. He can tell them how to catch him.

Gently, he smooths the man’s hair back from his face. “I'm Kakashi Hatake, the sheriff in Konoha,” he says.

A sound that’s almost entirely relief, a snort. “Never thought I’d be happy to meet a sheriff,” he says roughly, but he doesn’t move his head away from Kakashi’s shoulder. Clings tighter, if anything, and then says, “I'm Hidan. From Yu.”

Yu to Konoha is a long way to travel for work unless you're running from something, but Kakashi doesn’t say as much. Gets to his feet, careful to pull Hidan up with him, and is suddenly, achingly aware of how visible they are right now, poised on the top of the cliff, with empty land around them for miles. The road back to Konoha is still almost half an hour’s ride west, and Kakashi can think of far too many things that can happen to them between here and there.

“Do you think you can ride behind me?” he asks, and Hidan glances up. Several thoughts flicker across his face before he casts a look around them as well and grimaces.

“Zetsu can come up under the ground,” he says. “Like a goddamn _prairie dog_. How fast’s your horse?”

Kakashi glances at his mare. She’s a cross of draft and mustang, built for endurance and power rather than speed. He grimaces, but gets an arm around Hidan's waist and starts steering him over to her. “I guess we’ll find out,” he jokes lightly, and helps Hidan scramble up into the saddle, then hooks a foot in the stirrup and swings up behind him. another tremble wracks Hidan, but Kakashi wraps an arm tight around him, holds him in place against his chest, and muses, “Well, my job was getting kind of boring. It’s good you came along when you did.”

Hidan's laugh shakes out of him, and he twists his hands into the mare’s mane, clinging like a good grip will keep them from being ambushed on the way back. “Shithead,” he says. “What, the dead bodies wouldn’t give you lip?”

Kakashi hums, casting a glance back at the canyon even as he kicks the mare into a quick, ground-eating canter. There's—something. A shimmer all around him. all around _Hidan_, and it’s not what Kakashi was seeing over the coffin. He leans forward, ducks his head, and asks, “So, want to tell me how you survived, Hidan?”

The body in his arms stiffens, and Hidan doesn’t look back even as he starts to bristle. “Yeah. I fucking _didn’t_,” he snaps, and under any other circumstances Kakashi might be inclined to take that as exaggeration, but—

But.

(Kakashi’s eye burns, and he thinks for one half-second of the witch who gave it to him. Obito, desperate and dying, power sparking around him as the mining shaft collapsed, and then—

Light. Bright, green, _burning_, and the mountain had collapsed all around them. All around them, but…never on them. Not a single piece of stone touched them, and when Kakashi opened his eyes, Obito was something _else_. Something beautiful. Something _wild_.)

“Then I'm glad you came back,” Kakashi says quietly, and Hidan makes a broken sound. Turns, grabbing Kakashi’s arm and burying his face in his shoulder. It makes it harder to ride, but Kakashi doesn’t push him away. Doesn’t want to. He curls a hand over Hidan's head, keeps his eyes ahead of them as he looks for any sign something moving, and focuses on getting them back to Konoha before Hidan's abductor realizes that his murder had been interrupted.


End file.
